There is an ultimate question you should be asking all of your clients at least once per year.
An Astonishing Fact
It’s astonishing to find out that most companies lose their clients, because they don’t pay enough attention to them.
Many B2B companies only communicate with their current clients once a month, to send them an invoice.
As you know, the easiest business you can get is with your current clients.
The reason for this is because you have already built up a certain level of trust with them.
However, if you aren’t in constant communications with your clients, then you can bet that your competitors are.
And you must also be aware that your competition may not be just your direct competition, but may come in from almost anywhere.
So, to ward off this competition, you must be constantly telling your clients the value you are bringing them.
But are they really listening to this value?
As the decisive executive for your business, you know that your main job is to keep your clients happy and staying with your company, and to keep growing your client base. After all, without clients, you don’t have a company.
And this gets to the ultimate question every CEO should be asking his/her clients.
Your Clients NPS
“On a scale of 0-10, how likely is it that you would recommend my company to your friends, family or business associates?”
This question, invented by Bain & Company, is called the Net Prompter Score, or NPS for short.
If the score was a 9 or 10, then you need to find a way to make these clients advocates for your company.
If it was a 7 or 8 score, then there is a good chance you have a problem with that client remaining a client.
If the score is less than 7, then there is an excellent chance that client is looking elsewhere to replace your products and/or services.
Because, once you know the score from a client company, you then need to ask some follow-on questions, to completely understand why that company gave that score, and how to ensure you use it properly.
What to do after you get your client’s score
It is better to have a professional third-party interview your current clients, for three main reasons.
1. Your clients will usually give a third party more honest and direct answers.
2. If there is a problem, the third-party interviewer can uncover them better.
3. Your client will be impressed that you paid somebody to interview them. It makes them feel special to your company.
I have performed hundreds of client interviews over my business career.
Because of these interviews, I have developed a full interview questionnaire that reveals all about how your clients feel about your company and your products/services, and whether they would be open to further business with your company.
You then need to develop a system that allows you to incorporate the answers into a methodology and system that will help you keep this client, if possible.
You also need to have a methodology in place that will let the clients who gave you a 9 or 10 understand how to become advocates for your company.
As you can probably surmise, I already have such a system and methodology in place that I use to help my clients, help their clients grow.
Please contact me, through my email below, and let’s talk about how you can develop your Net Promoter System for your clients, and how to ensure you can keep more clients, as well as develop your 9’s and 10’s into advocates.
Kind regards,
Ian Dainty’s Email
Author of the Book – Grow Your B2B Business With Strategic Account Management
Follow @iandainty
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